The Perils Of Indifference Analysis

In the speeches The Perils of Indifference by Elie Wiesel and On Women’s Right to Vote by Susan B. Anthony, there is a common theme. Rights, whether human or civil, justifiably belong to every person. All people, regardless of race, gender, or ethnicity, should be afforded the same human rights.
The Perils of Indifference details the feelings of Holocaust victims. Elie Wiesel describes abandonment and indifference. In the quote, “Rooted in our tradition, some of us felt that to be abandoned by humanity then was not the ultimate. We felt that to be abandoned by God was worse than to be punished by Him. Better an unjust God than an indifferent one” (Wiesel 1999), you can feel their immense pain. It is common knowledge that the Holocaust victims were treated inhumanely and unjustly. In the speech, “On Women’s Right to Vote”, Susan B. Anthony describes women being treated unjustly. She believed it was a woman’s right as a citizen to vote. In her speech, she stated, “It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union” (Anthony, 1872). In her role as President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, she fought hard for women to be treated as equals to men.

Both speeches are similar in regards to their descriptions of people’s feelings.

Elie Wiesel strongly details the mistreatment of Holocaust victims. In his quote, “They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing. They were dead and did not know it” (Wiesel, 1999), he describes prisoners at the Auschwitz internment camp. For her part, Susan B. Anthony describes woman’s struggle for the right to vote. In her quote, “Are women persons” (Anthony, 1872), she alludes to the fact that women are treated like a sub-par species. She also states that the government has ordained all men sovereigns and all women subjects. (Anthony,

1872)
While both speeches are similar, they are also very different. By describing the mistreatment of Holocaust victims, Wiesel touches on the subject of human rights. He describes the word indifferent and states, “Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger or hatred.” (Wiesel, 1999) The Holocaust victims felt as if the rest of the world was indifferent to their human rights being taken away. Anthony’s speech is more geared towards a woman’s civil rights. In her quote, “For any state to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people, is to pass a bill of attainder, or, an ex post facto law, and is therefore a violation of the supreme law of the land” (Anthony, 1872), she makes a strong case opposing only men being allowed to vote. She feels strongly about women’s civil rights being violated, and this caused her to illegally vote in an election.
In their speeches, Wiesel and Anthony both give detailed descriptions of people being treated unjustly. Anthony’s speech is specific to civil rights; however, civil rights are still human rights. All people, regardless of race, gender, or ethnicity, should be afforded the same human rights.